Electrifying Arrivals

GM's Tony Posawatz suggested I be on Capitol Hill on Thursday, 4 December 2008. He wouldn't say why, but he seemed to suggest I would be in for a surprise.

I was, but it wasn't the fleeting glimpse of the Chevrolet Cruze "mule" in which Rick Wagoner, GM's CEO, arrived for a second round of hearings before Congress.

No, what surprised me was the media frenzy that the arrival of the Big Three auto executives incited that morning as I found myself surrounded -- but in a really good location -- by network and cable radio and television crews, or what is referred to in the trade as the press 'scrum', presumably after the term used in rugby.

While I was only able to record brief images of both Wagoner -- who entered the wrong door -- and the Volt "surrogate" -- I did capture the arrivals of Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli and Ford's Alan Mulullay.

At the time this was recorded, the fate of the loans to the car company's remained very much in doubt. In the interim, the Bush Administration approved some $14 billion to Chrysler and GM, with stringent strings attached. Ford, in somewhat better financial shape, passed on any federal assistance for now.

I wanted to share this short video to give EV World "viewers" a sense of the drama building up to those fateful hearings in Washington, D.C. last month.

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